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than in bank deposits, because in this form it guaranteed freedom from the harassment of the authorities which could be very costly.
The rank and file of provincial bureaucrats had to make ends meet from tips and petty extortions. To explain how the system worked, one can do no better than cite an incident from Saltykov-Shchedrin's Provincial Sketches, which describes in fictional form a perfectly real situation. The hero of this narrative, a minor provincial chinovnik of the old Nicholaevan school caught up in the reforms of Alexander 11, reminisces nostalgically about the past:
Yes, we took, of course, we took - who is not a sinner in the eyes of the Lord, who is not guilty before the tsar? But tell me: is it better to accept no money and work badly? When you take money, work becomes easier, more exciting. Nowadays, I look around me, everybody is busy talking, especially about this thing 'disinterest', and nothing gets done; and as for the peasant who's supposed to be better off, he groans and moans worse than before. In those days we chinovniki were very friendly with one another. There was no such thing as envy or backbiting: one could always turn to the others for advice and help. Suppose, for instance, that you have played cards all night and got cleaned out. What then? Well, you would go to the local police chief. 'Demian Ivanovich,' you would say to him, 'such and such happened. Please help.' Demian Ivanovich would hear out your story and laugh, the way bosses do. 'You sons of bitches,' he would say, 'you hold jobs and yet you won't ever learn how to make yourself a pile - everything you rake in you spend in taverns and at cards!' And then he would add: 'Well, what's done is done. Get yourself over to the Sharkovskii District and collect the taxes.' So you would proceed there, knowing you wouldn't collect any taxes but still get enough to pay for your kids' milk. It was all so very simple. You never used torture or extortion of any kind. You'd just arrive and assemble the people together. 'All right fellows, we need your help: the tsar, our father, needs money. Hand over the taxes!' And after saying this you'd step inside some cottage and look out of the window. The fellows would stand in place, scratching their heads. Then, all of a sudden, all would start talking at once and waving their arms. So they would cool off for an hour while you, of course, sat in the cottage as if nothing had happened and had yourself a good laugh. After an hour, you would send the village official over to them. 'Enough talk,' he would say, 'the master is getting angry.' Then the confusion would get worse and they'd start casting lots: a Russian muzhik can't do without lots. That meant things were moving along, they have decided to talk to the assessor and ask, wouldn't I, for heaven's sake, agree to wait until they had a chance to earn some money. 'Ah, my friends: but what about your father, the tsar? He needs the money. At least take pity on us, your officials!' All this would be said in a kindly voice: no smacking in the teeth or pulling by the hair. No saying to them: 'I take no bribes, so you'd better know what kind
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of a district official I am.' Nothing of the kind. You'd get right through to them by acting gently and appealing to pity. 'But, sire, couldn't you at least wait until the Feast of Intercession?' And, of course, down on their knees they would go. 'One can wait, sure, why not, that depends only on us. But what am I going to say to my superiors? Judge for yourselves.' So the fellows would return to the assembly. There they would talk some more and then scatter to their homes. A couple of hours later you would look out and see the village official bringing you, as a reward for your willingness to be patient with taxes, ten kopecks per soul. And since the district had some four thousand souls, you'd end up with 400 rubles, sometimes more... And you'd head back home with a gayer heart.* Chinovniki like this one populate the pages of Russian literature from Gogol to Chekhov, some good-natured and gentle, others overbearing and brutal, but both types living off the land as if they were foreign conquerors among a subjugated race. Their society resembled a closed order. They tended to associate only with their own kind, fawning on superiors (nachal'stvo) and bullying inferiors. They loved the hierarchical stratification of chiny, with its automatic promotions, of which they were part, and regarded all existence outside their system as wild anarchy. They instinctively ejected from their midst the overzealous and scrupulous because the system required all to be implicated in bribery so as to create a bond of mutual responsibility. Just as drunks do not like sober companions, thieves feel uncomfortable in the presence of honest men.
Like any self-contained, hierarchical order, the Russian civil service evolved an elaborate set of symbols to distinguish the ranks among each other. The symbolism was formalized in the reign of Nicholas 1 and spelled out in 869 solid paragraphs in Volume I of the Code of Laws. For ceremonial purposes, the ranks were grouped into several categories, each of which had to be addressed by an appropriate title, all translations from the German. The holders of the top two ranks had to be called 'Your High Excellency' (Euer Hochwohlgeboren or Vashe Vysokoprevos-khoditel'stvo), those in Ranks 3 and 4, 'Your Excellency' (Euer Wohlgeboren or Vashe Prevoskhoditel'stvo) and so down the scale, with holders of Rank 9 to 14 being addressed simply as 'Your Honour' (Euer Wurden or Vashe Blagorodie). With each rank category went also an appropriate uniform, specified to the last sartorial detaiclass="underline" promotion from white to black trousers was an event of cataclysmic proportion in a chinovnik's life. Holders of medals and orders (St Vladimir, St Anne, St George, etc., with their several classes) were also entitled to elaborate distinctions.
Honest public officials were to be found almost exclusively in the centre, in ministerial offices or their equivalent. The idea of office-holding
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as a public service was entirely alien to the Russian bureaucracy; it was something imported from the west, mainly Germany. It was Baltic Germans who first demonstrated to the Russians that an official could use his power to serve society. The imperial government greatly valued these men and they acquired a disproportionate share of the topmost ranks; we have already noted the high proportion of foreigners, especially Lutherans, among the elite officials of the imperial bureaucracy (above, p. 182). Many of the best civil servants were graduates of two special schools, the Lyceum at Tsarskoe Selo and the Imperial School of Jurisprudence.
An almost unbridgeable gap separated bureaucrats employed in the central administrative offices in St Petersburg and Moscow from those serving in the provincial administration. The latter had little opportunity of ever advancing to posts in the capital cities, and, conversely, officials who by virtue of family background, education, or wealth began their career ascent up the ladder of the central administration, rarely ventured into the provinces unless to assume the position of Governor or Deputy Governor. This gap perpetuated the ancient cleavage between elite dvoriane inscribed in the service books of the city of Moscow and the ordinary provincial dvorianstvo. Secondly, and again in line with Muscovite traditions, the imperial bureaucracy displayed a distinct tendency to form a closed, hereditary caste. Alarge proportion of the chinovniki were sons of chinovniki; and those clergymen, merchants and other commoners who entered the civil service from the outside generally tended to push their children into bureaucratic careers as well. Dvoriane of any standing rarely joined the civil service, partly because of its low prestige, partly because the rigid ranking system forced them to compete with chinovniki far below them in education and social status. This situation began to change only towards the very end of the imperial regime when it became fashionable in upper circles to enter the civil service.